Community Corrections gets full-time aide

October 24, 2012

By

Jannaya Andrews

Ian Gilbert

Whether or not county employees are replaced with full- or part-time employees should be universal, according to Community Corrections Director Ian Gilbert.
Gilbert met with the Adams County Commissioners on Monday to discuss moving his administrative assistant from a part-time to a full-time position.
Back in September, Gilbert requested permission to hire a full-time replacement for the administrative assistant who was quitting.
At that time, commissioners requested Gilbert try to make things work with a part-time replacement in an effort to cut costs. The commissioners also told Gilbert if this did not work out, he could come back and request a full-time employee again.
After meeting with commissioners last week to report his office needs a full-time administrator, the commissioners asked Gilbert to perform an informal evaluation of the new person and return again this week to allow them more time to think about the situation.
Gilbert agreed and returned this week with the evaluation, stating that he evaluated the new administrator on job performance, knowledge, quality, attendance, initiative, communication and listening skills, and dependability.
"All of her ratings were either good or excellent," said Gilbert. "Her overall rating, with a 5 being the highest, her average was a 4.6."
Gilbert said he believes a full-time employee is more apt to stay than a part-time employee because of the added benefits.
Additionally, Gilbert said not having the admin in the office full-time takes time away from other employees in the office who have to cover the admin position.
Gilbert also pointed out that since he was denied replacing the previous admin with a full-time position, commissioners have approved replacing full-time employees on three occasions, as well as approving a pay increase for another county employee.
"This has always been a full-time position," said Gilbert. "Since 2008 when this department started, this has always been a full-time position. This isn't a position that started out part-time and we came back later and said 'We want it to be full-time.' It's always been a full-time position until now."
After a lengthy discussion the commissioners agreed to break the hiring freeze and allow Gilbert to make the position full-time once again.